One important performance metric for a storage system is the latency related to retrieving data stored in the storage system. The performance of the storage system improves with a decrease in the read latency. The read latency for a storage system may be decreased if the storage system is able to reliably retrieve error-free data from the storage medium. When error-free data is not retrieved, the storage system may perform additional actions in order to remove the errors from the retrieved data. For example, the storage system may perform additional read operations and/or use redundant arrays of independent disks (RAID) to remove errors from the retrieved data or otherwise generate error-free data. The use of error correcting mechanisms results in an increase in read latency, which is accompanied with a corresponding decrease in performance.